Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended

Hello, saro. What you are thinking about are coordinate adjectives, and the rule there is that if you can reverse the order of the adjectives (some sources also say to place "and" between them) without distorting the expression of vital meaning, then you do add a comma. Consider the following sentences:

1) I hope you lead a long, prosperous life.

2) I hope you lead a prosperous, long life.

Although I would favor the first sentence since it seems to roll off the tongue a bit better, the two adjectives can be switched seamlessly. Compare to the following two sentences:

1) The big brown bear attacked the hikers.

2) The brown big bear attacked the hikers.

The second sentence is the kind that a youngster might utter before a parent would offer a correction (to the first sentence). The adjectives here are fixed. Grammatically, they are known as cumulative adjectives. In all honesty, there is no particular underlying reason that the second sentence is incorrect. Other languages, such as Japanese, allow for much looser placement of the grammatical components of a sentence. In English, though, this is just how the language has been passed down, and at some point in time, grammarians decided to make up a rule.

Now, looking at the sentence we are dealing with in this SC question, you will notice that we have more than two adjectives. In fact, we have three: recent extended sales. Even though sales can be used as a noun, its placement before slump indicates that it is modifying the slump instead as an adjective. The question is, can we reverse the placement of any of these adjectives?

1) recent extended sales slump
(This works, since the sentence is discussing an extended slump of some sort, one that has occurred more recently.)

2) extended recent sales slump
(This will not work in the given context of the sentence, since the sentence is now discussing a recent slump that is being extended.)

3) recent sales extended slump

4) extended sales recent slump

5) sales recent extended slump

6) sales extended recent slump

The punctuation issue is not really a concern here, given that none of the answer choices opt for commas at the end, but you never know what a different question might spring on you.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Hi shaldor, it is clear that reporting by the retailer happened in the past (let's say yesterday). Since the reporting happened yesterday, the retailer can obviously comment only on what had been plaguing the retailer (in this case extended sales slump) either yesterday or sometime before yesterday.

In other words, since the reporting happened yesterday, the retailer cannot comment on what is plaguing the retailer today! (commenting about today would be futuristic from yesterday's perspective, and would typically require the usage of would).

You can watch our video on Past Perfect.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Past perfect tense, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Request Expert Reply:
Could you share your thought why don't we consider choice A as run-on?
Thank you...

Hi! A run-on is when two Independent clauses are connected by just a comma.

That is not the case with A.

Please note that reporting...apparel is a participial phrase note a clause.

EducationAisle
Thanks for the quick response.
Could you share how participle phrase works?

Generally speaking, participle phrases work as adjectives.

In this case, the participle phrase 'Reporting that one.....' is modifying the noun-phrase 'the seven-store retailer', implying that the seven-store retailer is the one that did the reporting.

Hi AndrewN Sir,

I want to clarify on a small issue that recent means something just immediate happened or past from the previous time. When i read this sentence i was little skeptical to choose A because of this recent word.

Can you give some more information on the usage of recent with had. Usually for old history , we say previously or at that time but i think never read recent with had.

Thanks!

Good question, imSKR. I see why you might be confused. However, the past perfect in choice (A) is used merely to show that the problems mentioned predate what the retailer said. In other words, recent has no real bearing on the conjugation of the verbs. Consider a few other examples:

1) He said he had showered after his most recent run.

2) He said he had showered recently.

As long as the verbs present a clear timeline, the adjective or adverb that denotes how close to the present something has occurred is just adding information. You could remove recent, most recent, or recently from any of the sentences above and still have a perfectly legitimate sentence.

I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me.

- Andrew

I see the explanation and i get it - but why can't "has been" be correct logically?
Why wouldn't the sales slump be considered an ongoing problem? Just because the store "said" that it would perform a liquidation doesn't have to mean that the aforementioned sales slump suddenly disappears.

Hello fireagablast,
Thank you for the query.

Please pay attention to the context of the sentence. According to the sentence, the store reported a problem and said something to resolve this problem. Hence, the only logical sequence of events that is possible in the context of this sentence is that first, the problem occurred, then the store reported the same and announced a solution to deal with this problem.

Because the sale slump is the earliest event in the sentence, it is correctly written in the past perfect tense verb and cannot be written in any other tense.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

I am explaining my method as well as what I learnt from the response by GMATNinja


"its": Correct as the reference also exists in the part not underlined
"had been": the even happened before the retailer "said". So past perfect makes sense

We can keep it for now!


"its": Correct, as mentioned in (A)
"has been": The retailer said something in past. Its statement of the past cannot be in the present perfect. Incorrect! Reject (B)


Pronoun is good!
"is": Same as (B). Something said in the past cannot have the verb in present tense
Reject (C)


"their": Incorrect. The portion not underlined gives a clear reference "...the seven-store retailer said itwould start a three-month..."
Same issue with the tense of verb as in (D)


"their": Same issue as mentioned in (D)
"had been": Correct
Reject (E)

Therefore, the answer is (A)

(A) its many problems had been the recent
its is the right usage and had been is placeed correctly

(B) its many problems has been the recently
has been isn't the right usage

(C) its many problems is the recently
present tense isn't correct

(D) their many problems is the recent
Similar reasoning as C and its is better than their

(E) their many problems had been the recent
Similar reasoning as C and D
Hence IMO A

GMAT Sentence Correction - Recent or Recently?

Hi AndrewN IanStewart
I don't understand the past perfect in this question. if "one of it many problems had been the recent" was a past event and it was completed before the next event of "said", then recent extended sales slump was no longer the problem because it had been the problem before saying. So, going by this logic it wouldn't make sense to say that sales plump was the reason for the liquidation. Can you tell me where am I going wrong??
GMATNinja @aviigautam MartyTargetTestPrep

Correct Option : A

Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel, the seven-store retailer said it would start a three-month liquidation sale in all of its stores.

(A) its many problems had been the recent
(B) its many problems has been the recently
(C) its many problems is the recently
(D) their many problems is the recent
(E) their many problems had been the recent

The Elimination
1. Its vs Their - (The seven-store retailer - singular, its - Singular), wrong usage of "Their" eliminates D, and E

2. Tense - is the recently / has been recently / had been recently
- “Had been” is used to mean that something happened in the past and has already ended - Correct
- “has been” is used to mean that something began in the past and has lasted into the present time. - Eliminates B
- is is used to mean simple present tense - Eliminates C

While i get why Past Perfect is used, i don't understand what is wrong with Present Continuous and Simple Present.
It can happen that extension took place in the past, but the problem can persist in the present. The retailer can make statements in the past. This sentence is anyway being narrated by a third party.

I feel your pain on this one. I suppose you could argue that even if the recent slump is no longer a problem, it still could have prompted action to preempt a similar problem in the future. But it's hard to see how this kind of reasoning would be terribly helpful in a different question with a different context.

So here's a better takeaway: before you get in the weeds and grapple with the subtle nuances, get rid of the concrete stuff first! Here, as others have noted, you can kill (D) and (E) right away because the plural "their" can 't refer to the singular "retailer."

But notice that now we have a choice between "recent" and "recently." "Recent" is an adjective, and seems to be describing the "slump." Makes sense -- it's a recent slump, as opposed to one that happened a long time ago.

But "recently" is an adverb, so it can't be describing the noun "slump." So what's it doing here? Describing the modifier "extended?" That doesn't make sense. The slump is either happening or not. Nobody recently extended the slump the way someone might, say, extend a deadline. Because "recently" is a concrete error, we can kill (B) and (C), and this leaves us with (A).

If we rely on definitive errors to start, there's no need to agonize over the use of the past perfect here.

I hope that helps!